Arthritis Walk focuses on the plight of children

Young people who have arthritis have issues grown-ups can scarcely imagine.

Such as: What happens when you outgrow your artificial hips?

Caitlin Ryan, 15, will walk with her mother, Colleen, in the Orange County Arthritis Walk for the 10th time Sunday at UC Irvine's Aldrich Park.

Last year, the event raised $600,000 for arthritis research, as well as to fund three summer camps for kids with arthritis – at Camp Whittle, Big Bear Lake and Lake Hughes. This year, organizers are hoping to raise $650,000. Registration begins at 7 a.m. Sunday.

Caitlin was diagnosed with idiopathic arthritis, which used to be called juvenile RA, at the age of 3. She had fevers and rashes, and eventually her parents noticed her swollen joints, and that she couldn't turn her neck.

"She was just 3, you know. She was just a little baby girl," Colleen said. "It's so hard when you're in the hospital and they're coming at her with needles, and taking blood. You've got this tiny thing, and you can't do anything to help her. It's just about the most awful feeling in the world."

Caitlin has learned to deal with the disease, and she has good days and bad. She got much better when she had her deteriorating left hip replaced at age 11. The right one was replaced at 12.

Caitlin had to give up softball, to put less pressure on her ceramic-and-titanium implants. But the "cup" portion of the devices will need to be replaced in a couple of years; she's outgrowing them. Once the long titanium rod that runs down into the femur starts to get loose, it'll be trickier, since the bone tissue grows into the rod.

For the first couple of years of the OC Arthritis Walk, the Ryans took part just to fight their own sense of helplessness. But now they're committed to raising awareness about the "misconceptions" about arthritis.

"The walk is the way we fight the battle, for everybody who lives with arthritis," Colleen said, "and for people who don't take it seriously, who think it's something you get when you're old."

For more information, call 949-585-0201.

BEWARE 'NONSMOKING' ROOMS

Staying in a hotel room designated as nonsmoking still might expose guests to nicotine in the air and on surfaces, according to a new study in Tobacco Control, a medical journal.

Nonsmokers who spent a night in smoke-free rooms at San Diego hotels that had smoking and nonsmoking rooms showed evidence of agents in tobacco, according to urine and finger-wipe samples.

Surface nicotine levels were more than twice as high in nonsmoking rooms at hotels that had partial smoking bans, compared with hotels that had complete bans. Air nicotine levels were more than seven times higher in partial-ban rooms.

Even in rooms where no guest has smoked in a long time, the "legacy of tobacco pollution" lingers, the study said.

To avoid such "third-hand" exposure to smoke, the authors urge guests to choose smoke-free hotels.

WHAT TO AVOID WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING

Here's more evidence that pregnant women should get a seasonal flu shot and avoid people who have symptoms of the flu.

A study published in JAMA Psychiatry says that prenatal exposure to the influenza virus is associated with a nearly fourfold increase in the risk that a baby will develop bipolar disorder as an adult. The risk was slightly higher if the flu was contracted during the second or third trimester.

The study, conducted at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, noted that few women get immunized against the flu. "The weight of evidence now suggests that benefits of the vaccine likely outweigh any possible risk to the mother or newborn."